‘Infinitesimal Eternity’ Exhibition To Feature Works by 13 Artists

Artworks that remind humans of their relationship with the “spectacular” — such as when paying for groceries or banking using touch screens — are featured in the second exhibition at the School of Art’s 32 Edgewood Avenue Gallery.

“Infinitesimal Eternity,” on view Sept. 9-Oct. 24, was organized by George Rush, a lecturer in the Department of Painting and Printmaking at the School of Art, and four graduate students in the department: Nathan Azhderian, Amy Beecher, Erik Gonzalez and Natalie Westbrook. They coordinated all aspects of the show, from choosing the artists to arranging the details of shipping to the hanging of the works.

“Infinitesimal Eternity” features paintings, sculpture, photography and video by 13 artists whose attitude toward the spectacle can be described as “ambivalent,” the organizers say. Ideas about the spectacle and spectacular society, they point out, are associated with Guy Debord’s 1967 book “The Society of the Spectacle,” a critique of “the symptoms that accompany capitalism’s increasing dominion over all goods and services: the society of leisure, mass media, consumerism, the equivalence of time with production and consumption and a tendency to dehistoricize the present era.”

Some of the artists have been visiting critics in the School of Art in recent years, including Liz Deschenes, Wayne Gonzales, Glenn Ligon, Judith Eisler and John Miller, while two are School of Art alumni: Gina Ruggeri ‘96 and Beverly Fishman ‘80. All of the artists are internationally known and have been featured in prominent galleries and museums around the world.

An opening reception will take place on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 5-8 p.m. at 32 Edgewood Avenue Gallery. Gallery hours on other days are 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday. Admission is free.